Good news! I finally found the "real" camera. Bad news! Almost every photo I took with it is terrible. Which means good news for you, the easily-amused people of the Internet, because you get to point and laugh at my pathetic photography skills. And perhaps learn some lessons! Because that's what this blog is all about, right? The lessons, and the learning. Let's hold hands. Sorry mine are so alarmingly sweaty. LESSON #1: Maybe move the overflowing hamper full of cloth diapers out of frame. (In my defense, they were clean, having been washed in the last gasp of hot water we had before the water heater went.) (Oh, and remember how the plumber warned us the new thermostat would probably "only buy us a year" before other parts started failing? Yeah. Try THIRTY-SIX FREAKING HOURS. Our water heater is a prodigy. At sucking.) LESSON #2: Find a photography prompt other than "hold up your toy for a picture, sweetie." (In other words, I have approximately four dozen extreme close-ups of various toys with the mostly-obscured faces of my children behind them.) LESSON #3: Take multiple pictures of the same moment to ensure that no boy-child is adjusting their crotch... Read more →

1) Homeownership. Fuck yeah! On twas'd the night before Christmas, our water heater broke. No hot water. A plumber came on the twas'd morning after Christmas and fixed it, and also replaced our leaking-since-Thanksgiving garbage disposal, after determining that my solution (PUT A BOWL UNDER IT) was probably not going to work for us long-term. So that was fun and spendy and gaaaahhhh. 2) What blogger is this? I got sewing machine! Like for to sew things on, all crafty and domestic and shit. I haven't taken it out of the box yet, because I am kind of intimidated by it. (Even though it looks like one designed for people like me [IDIOTS], with lots of buttons labeled with pictures, like the hospital check-in register thing in Idiocracy. IS A BABBY FALLING OUT OF YOU? PRESS HERE FOR BACKSTITCH.) The last time I used a sewing machine was in 8th grade Home Ec. I made a hideous bright red sweatshirt. First I sewed the neckhole shut, then got my own shirt sleeve snagged in the machine needle and attached it to the sweatshirt's sleeve, a feat of physics and angles that baffles and impresses me to this day. I am... Read more →

OH HI. Today is the first day of Christmas break. For my kids, anyway. I had to do some work this morning and left them somewhat unsupervised downstairs for an hour or so, figuring that breakfast and the glowing glowy glow of the iPad would keep them out of trouble. Y'all. It's going to be a long two weeks. The living room is covered with a rich, full pelt of Legos, stuffed animals, pillows and a pool floatie. You know, in case you wanna go swimming in those there hoard-piles. (And yes. By all means, let's give these poor children some MORE TOYS.) Sea of pillow forts, continued. The map pillows and Lord of the Rings DVD cases scattered around offer up some clues about the morning battle that raged here. (And yes. It figures that we'd be the ones who could find a way to make the Charlie Brown Christmas tree look even more pathetic.) In the kitchen, we have the traditional holiday offerings of shoes, a package of naan and a half-eaten apple. As one does, in the fashion of the times. Juice spills, cereal crumbs, makeshift highchair, ear muffs (?) and an overall sticky coating of grossness.... Read more →

I was still working upstairs when Jason brought Ezra home from school. "He's asking for you," Jason informed me with a smile. "He made you something." I went downstairs to find Ezra nervously pacing the foyer. He was clutching a piece of brown construction paper and some beads strung on plastic lacing cord. He beamed when he saw me. "I made you necklaces, Mommy! Now you will look so beautiful." He handed me two necklaces. "This is your snow necklace," he explained, pointing at the one featuring shiny, metallic beads. "And this is your beach necklace," pointing to the other. "Thank you, Ez! These are so perfect. I love them!" (His sense of seasonal style was, in fact, oddly on point.) He handed me the card. His name was on the front, next to a squiggly shape with two smaller shapes inside. "I drew you a heart. And we're inside the heart. Because we're in love." I tried not to die while I opened the card, which was filled with nothing but long wavy lines. "Those are words," he said. "And they say I LOVE YOU MOMMY SO MUCH FOREVER." *** I was clearing the dinner table when Noah reached... Read more →

Blergh. Blergh, I say! So surprise, surprise, after three cooped-up days of wiping up toddler snot and getting my face coughed on, I came down with Ike's cold. And dear holy gods of Sudafed, what a cold it was. Is. I'm still not fully over it. *stares at wall in foggy-headed stupor for 20 minutes* *loses train of thought* *CANDY CRUSSSSSH!!!1!!11one!* So that's been the last few days, more or less. My in-laws visited over the weekend to celebrate Christmas with the boys and spoil them completely no-good down-and-dirty rotten. My plan for Ike's Christmas gifts were to dig out some of the preschooler toys I packed up last winter in preparation for the Big Move That Never Happened, then wrap them up and present them as new and exciting. And then maybe buy him one new Elmo/Grover-ish item, since Sesame Street Fever skipped my first two almost entirely and we don't have much from that toy category, which now infects my youngest at near-Beatlemania levels. My mother-in-law, on the other hand, decided to take my hand-me-down idea, cross it with Ike's love of Sesame Street, then mix in some ninja-like eBay skillz (and more patience and devotion than I... Read more →

What better way to follow up a couple of snow days than with a couple of sick days? Yay! And hooray! I can't stop compulsively rhyming, hey! Ike's been home with some crappy viral fever thing for two days now, and to say that I am having a "hard time" getting anything accomplished would be very much of an understatement. I don't actually believe I've "accomplished" anything at all, unless you count the 27 half-finished email drafts I've piled up and the 10 minutes I just spent staring at the word "accomplished" while trying to remember if it was a real word. Because it stopped looking like a real word there, for a bit, I think because of the "plished" part. Plished. Plished. (In case it was not obvious, Ike's cold includes a terrible cough that gets even more terrible at night, so neither of us are sleeping very well. On the bright side, he calls coughing "coffee" and if you ask him how he's feeling he says, "I have coffee in my nose." That hasn't gotten old yet, although everything else about this snotty-coffee-low-grade-feverish state certainly has.) Anyway, I'm hoping he gets better soon for his sake, because awwww... Read more →

Well, so much for that theory. It's snowing again. But today my boys have no real interest in playing outside so it's still entirely possible that I wasted a bunch of money on snow pants and boots yet again. And that's what really counts, you know? Ah, traditions. Speaking of 1) traditions, and 2) seasonal wastes of money, we took the pack for their annual visit to the local Mall Santa. They submitted their requests (Ninja Turtles and MORE LEGOS GOOD MERCIFUL CHRIST) and quizzed the poor man mercilessly about why our Elf on the Shelf has to go home after Christmas, that's MEAN, Santa, he's OURS, let him STAY. (Note that Mall Santa did not seem to be familar with the Elf on the Shelf, that creepy stalker toy that I was suckered into a couple years ago and now constantly forget to move at night; and in fact I may or may not have purposely knocked a box of cereal over one morning to distract the boys while I grabbed Elf off the broken wine rack and tossed him into the next room. BAM. DINING ROOM TABLE. THREE POINTS. In other words, do your industry research, Santa.) And... Read more →

The DC metro area was pounded over the weekend with like...I dunno. A couple inches of snow and a coating of slushy stuff. So naturally it was time to 1) panic, 2) BUY ALL THE BREAD, 3) CANCEL ALL THE SCHOOLS, and 4) realize how poorly outfitted my children are for winter weather. I have a huge plastic bin full of snow pants, snow boots and other snow-related accessories. Most of the stuff inside still has the tags attached, since I apparently have the ability to control the weather. If I buy my kids boots and snow pants ahead of time, all proactive-like, it will not snow that winter. I'm like the Snow Queen from Frozen, only in reverse and more shoppy. I wave my magic hands in the direction of a 40% off outerwear sale and BOOM. We will not see snow or ice again until my children have solidly outgrown whatever I just bought them. So yesterday I hauled the bin out and started digging through it. Ezra very much wanted to go outside and play in the snow, so I needed to outfit him for blizzard-type conditions. (Note that you could still see the tips of the... Read more →

Over and over and over and over again. And maybe not so much of a "party" as individual kids dancing by themselves, like nobody's watching...except for the camera they ordered me to record them with. (You know I love them more than anything but MY GOD, I just might have the whitest children ever.) Read more →

1) Not getting any better at coming up with interesting blog post titles. OBVIOUSLY. Ten years, I've been at this. I'm thinking that post titles are just never going to be a skill and I should make peace with that. From here on out expect me to just start titling every post "Things" and "Stuff" and "ASDFGHJKL." 2) Putting various things back together with Scotch Tape and gum. About five minutes after our last Thanksgiving guest left, everything in my house fell apart. Seriously. Towel hooks suddenly fell off of the wall. The garbage disposal started leaking. A cabinet door came off its hinges. And worst, most terrible of all: MY WINE RACK BROKE. Presumably from the strain of years of repeated heavy overuse. Thankfully, no bottles of wine were harmed in the collapse, though clearly they will all need to be drunk ASAP. Because. Because of the reasons. 3) Getting festive as shee-it up in this bitch. Our Christmas tree is up. And decorated. (I put up almost nothing but cheap, shatter-resistant ornaments this year, but then Jason insisted on digging out the full collection of Nostalgic Nerd Things and added all our old Star Wars/Star Trek/LOTR ones. 24... Read more →